The Tesla Model S, Motor Trend Car of the Year is introduced at the 2013 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, January 15, 2013. (Photo credit: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images)

Tesla is giving away its revolutionary electric car technology for free. The company's founder and CEO Elon Musk, who also runs Hawthorne-based SpaceX, announced in a blog post Thursday that Tesla would not file lawsuits against automakers that wish to use its electric technology. (Submitted photo)

After spending a decade and hundreds of millions of dollars on research and development, Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk announced Thursday that he is giving away his revolutionary electric car technology for free.

The 42-year-old billionaire entrepreneur believes the open-source approach is the only way that electric carmakers will be able to compete with gasoline-powered vehicles, which account for 99 percent of car sales.

Musk, who also runs Hawthorne-based rocket maker SpaceX, wrote in a blog post that Tesla would not file lawsuits against car companies that adopt its electric technology.

“Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property land mines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal,” Musk wrote on Tesla’s blog.

He went on to say that patents no longer encourage innovation, as they were originally intended, but rather “serve merely to stifle progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations and enrich those in the legal profession, rather than the actual inventors.”

Tesla, which has a design studio in Hawthorne, patented its technology early on to protect its investment in research and development from big carmakers, Musk wrote in Thursday’s blog post, but the company now views the “enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day” as its main competition.

Musk has long advocated for sustainable energy. He released rough plans for a solar-powered, high-speed train in August 2013 and is the largest shareholder in Solar City, a solar panel company run by his cousin.

But Musk is not releasing Tesla’s patents simply to save the world. The company has a lot to gain from other carmakers building and selling more electric vehicles, which Musk says they are not doing fast — or well — enough.

A lack of charging stations and limited range are the primary reasons people are avoiding electric cars, which is why Tesla built a network of 97 Supercharger stations that make it possible to leapfrog across the United States.

The Model S sedan can drive about three hours on a half-hour Supercharge. Superchargers are five times faster than standard charging stations used by other electric cars — and they are free for Tesla owners.

An adaptor will allow the Model S to hook up to regular charging stations, but major car companies are not going to invest heavily in charging infrastructure until consumers are buying electric cars in greater numbers.

“It’s the chicken or the egg problem,” said Ed Kim, vice president of industry analysis at AutoPacific Inc., an Orange County-based company that monitors the car industry. “The more electric vehicles there are on the road, the more infrastructure there will be to support them.”

Hydrogen fuel technology is the other elephant in the room that Musk’s post fails to mention. Hydrogen fuel-powered vehicles are essentially electric vehicles that are powered by fuel cells instead of electric batteries, which means they are a threat to Tesla’s business model.

“Tesla is heavily invested in battery packs and they want to make sure they are the way forward,” Kim said. Tesla’s patent release is “another salvo in the battle between battery power and hydrogen fuel cells.”

Musk’s announcement comes as California environmental groups are working to pass Senate Bill 1275, which aims to put 1 million electric vehicles on the road within the next decade.

“Gas-powered vehicles account for 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and two-thirds of regional pollutants,” said Bahram Fazeli, a policy director at the California Environmental Justice Alliance, which supports SB 1275. “Any effort that will create more incentives and make it easier to make zero-emission cars is definitely a very positive move.”

Toyota declined to comment on Musk’s announcement. Honda — which, like Toyota, has a major U.S. headquarters in Torrance —issued this email statement:

“Honda is a leader in the field of electric drive technologies and already has one of the most energy-efficient electric vehicles on the road — the 118 MPGe EPA-rated Fit EV. More so, its power and handling make it one of the most fun-to-drive EVs on the market.”

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